Neoliberal Chile Research Articles

Pérez Ahumada, Pablo (2023) Building Power to Shape Labor Policy: Unions, Employer Associations, and Reform in Neoliberal Chile, University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), xiii + 224 pp. US$55.00 hdbk.

Pérez Ahumada, Pablo (2023) Building Power to Shape Labor Policy: Unions, Employer Associations, and Reform in Neoliberal Chile, University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), xiii + 224 pp. <scp>US</scp>$55.00 hdbk.

Neoliberalization's Impact in Chilean society. - Identity Investments: Middle-class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile. By Joel Phillip Stillerman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. Pp. 283. $90.00 cloth; $32.00 paper.

Neoliberalization's Impact in Chilean society. - Identity Investments: Middle-class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile. By Joel Phillip Stillerman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. Pp. 283. $90.00 cloth; $32.00 paper.

Becoming a (Neuro)migrant: Haitian Migration, Translation and Subjectivation in Santiago, Chile

ABSTRACT Based on a multi-sited ethnography conducted over 14 months in northern Santiago, I examine how the introduction of a series of health policies and the global mental health agenda has interacted with and impacted Haitian migrants in the context of a postdictatorship neoliberal Chile (1990–2019). Specifically, I explore the interactions between health and social institutions, mental health practitioners, psy technologies, and Haitian migrants, highlighting migrants’ subjectivation processes and everyday life. I argue that Haitian migrants engage with heterogeneous subjectivation processes in their interactions with health and social institutions, challenging normative values of integration into Chilean society. These processes are marked not only by the presence of, or exposure to, psy interventions and mental health discourses but also by the degree of compatibility between a psychiatric and neurological language and Haitians’ ideals and moral frameworks.

Review of “Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile”

Review of “Identity Investments: Middle-Class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile”

Building Power to Shape Labor Policy: Unions, Employer Associations, and Reform in Neoliberal Chile By PabloPérez Ahumada, University of Pittsburgh Press, May 2023, 224 pp., ISBN: 9780822947691 (hardback), Price USD 55.00

Building Power to Shape Labor Policy: Unions, Employer Associations, and Reform in Neoliberal Chile By PabloPérez Ahumada, University of Pittsburgh Press, May 2023, 224 pp., ISBN: 9780822947691 (hardback), Price USD 55.00

The Miracle, the Awakening, and the Celebration

This essay reflects critically on the neoliberal Chile of the last forty years. Taking Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society as a frame of reference, the essay offers an analysis of the recent Chilean uprising. It argues that the revolt of October 2019 expressed a deep rejection of the existing economic model, emphasizing its cultural concomitants and questioning the practices of self-exploitation imposed by neoliberal work culture. The first part of the essay develops a critical picture of the figure of the entrepreneur, an embodiment of meritocratic ideology and cornerstone of the Chilean neoliberal project. After this, the essay proposes an argument to explain the historical forces behind the uprising and the different forms of resistance expressed since. It concludes with an invitation to rethink work as such and its role in a future postneoliberal Chile.

Breaking the Televisual Consensus in Chile: Popular Subjectivity and Popular Revolt in the TV Series El reemplazante

AbstractThis article presents a cultural analysis of the Chilean TV series El reemplazante (The substitute). The series ran on TVN (National Television of Chile) from 2012 to 2013, and it is currently available on Netflix. The show broke televisual consensus in Chile that made the production of TV series invested in promoting dissenting political viewpoints virtually impossible. As such, El reemplazante can be conceived as an antecedent of the 2019 social uprising and as an alternative model of critical TV in Chile and Latin America. The article first examines the mediation between the patriarchal and racist model of the superhero teacher and the construction of a popular subjectivity that disrupts said model. It then deals with the hyperrealist aesthetic of the show as a privileged mode of enacting a social critique on TV, and it addresses the representation of the city and its geographies of segregation as a gateway to unpacking the problematic of education in neoliberal Chile. The conclusion reflects on the abrupt cancellation of the show and the limits that the Chilean production model places on TV series with transformative intentions.

Ways of Not-Knowing in Neoliberal Chile

Abstract: Through two significantly distinct ethnographic case studies, both based in Santiago, Chile, we argue for the need to attend to experiences which are not conceptualised by our interlocutors, or that remain ‘dark’ in terms of their ontological and representational properties. We point out that anthropology has been ill-equipped to deal with these ineffable margins, and point to conceptual arches which could be used transversally in what we call a ‘dark anthropology’. The two fields in question here are the ufological ‘absurd’ and early mothering experiences among low-income communities. What both have in common is that they defy anthropological figure-ground logics, where experiences are explained via their social contexts. We argue for an anthropology that can come to grips with non-linear, sometimes dark, socialities.Résumé : A travers deux études de cas ethnographiques, qui sont très distinctes mais basées à Santiago du Chili toutes les deux, nous soutenons le besoin de nous intéresser aux expériences qui ne sont pas conceptualisées par nos interlocuteurs, ou qui restent «obscures» en termes de leurs propriétés ontologiques et représentationnelles. Nous soulignons que l’anthropologie est mal équipée pour traiter ces marges ineffables, tout en proposant des liens conceptuels qui pourraient être utilisés transversalement dans ce que nous appelons une «anthropologie sombre». Les deux domaines en question ici sont l’»absurde» ufologique et les expériences de maternage précoce au sein des communautés à faibles revenus. Tous les deux ont en commun de défier les logiques anthropologiques figure-fond, où les expériences sont généralement expliquées par leurs contextes sociaux. Nous plaidons pour une anthropologie capable d’aborder les socialités non linéaires et parfois sombres.

Platform capitalism and neo‐normative control: “Autonomy” as a digital platform control strategy in neoliberal Chile

AbstractA key element of the platform business model is concentrating great organisational power over the work process while simultaneously allowing workers certain degrees of autonomy and encouraging them to see themselves as self‐employed. This study applied the neo‐normative control concept to analyse the mechanisms platforms use to promote freedom of choice and self‐regulation values, which are formed extra‐organisationally in deeply neoliberal societies such as Chile. The Uber ride‐hailing and Pedidos Ya home delivery platforms in Chile were examined using a labour process theory framework based on an ethnographic design. The results show the specific ways in which these platforms deploy forms of neo‐normative control, how this deployment is anchored in the labour context of neoliberal Chilean society, and how workers re‐signify, stress, or seek to subvert this control strategy. The findings' theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

From Social Assistance to Control in Urban Margins: Ambivalent Police Practices in Neoliberal Chile

Crime increase in Latin America has occurred in parallel with a change in police policy in territories. Along with the processes of militarization and police repression, strategies of co-production have been inspired by community policing, but the articulation of both in urban margins has been understudied. Our hypothesis affirms the coexistence and ambivalence of both social assistance and abusive practices against the city's poor. Qualitative methods conducted in Santiago, Chile, show police policy involves both dimensions, which are strongly rooted in identity elements of the military tradition of the region's police forces.

Raising children in hostile worlds in Santiago de Chile: Optimism and ‘hyper-agentic’ mothers

Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile – and a follow-up study six years later – in this article we look closely at how mothering takes place through a sense of optimism while living in a hostile world, contrasting our findings with similar research in northern countries. Rather than waiting for opportunities to present themselves, women’s sense of optimism is based on their own difficult experiences of learning to cope in a hostile world, and how this requires organizing their children’s education to face challenges beyond their immediate family circle. We claim the existence of hyper-agentic motherhood – one that articulates traditional maternalism, increasing societal demands on parenting and the specific take on individuation detached from institutions in neoliberal Chile. Mothering through optimism in a hostile world questions the possibility to import classed parenting models. We identify a resonance with Adrie Kusserow’s description of hard individualism in which children are taught how to navigate the hostile world in the search for success, but with the difference that children in this context are brought up with the idea that mothers will be there for them in the long run, regardless of what actually takes place. This longitudinal study of parenting provides information on the usually silent processes of subjectification and emergent values that can be overlooked in times of social transformation.

"It's hard to become mothers": The moral economy of postponing motherhood in neoliberal Chile.

The delay of childbearing is one of the most prominent transformations of contemporary fertility and reproductive patterns. This article provides a novel approach to understanding why women are postponing motherhood and having children later in life. Drawing on 24 life story interviews with women from Santiago de Chile, I argue that the transition to motherhood is shaped by a moral economy in which women postpone childbearing to enable becoming "good" mothers. In a context in which social fertility is being redefined by neoliberalism, intensive mothering, and lone motherhood, I find that women delay childbearing until after achieving professional and financial milestones that allow them to fulfil the normative conditions for having children. These findings suggest that women postpone the transition to motherhood not because they reject childbearing and traditional gender roles, but rather because they aspire to become "good" mothers in a context characterized by institutional precariousness, relational insecurity, and increasing demands on mothering. Through these findings, I challenge prevalent interpretations of why women are having children later in life, extend accounts of the gendered norms of social fertility, and contest the nature of autonomy driving change in women's lives.

Facing neoliberalism through dialogic spaces as sites of hope in science education: experiences of two self-organised communities

In this paper, we discuss the role of dialogue in two layers; first, in relation to two self-organised communities of science teachers in which we participated and, second, our process of coming together during our PhDs to analyse these communities, a dialogue about the dialogue. Regarding the first layer, there is much to learn from science teachers and science teacher educators when they are organised in sites of learning that can be spaces of hope, beginnings, and becoming, as is illustrated in the case of these two self-organised communities. Regarding the second layer, we discuss the value of dialogue and the possibilities it offers to develop ideas for science education in a way that might be democratising, emancipatory, and offering counter-narratives in a neoliberal Chile. By engaging in this dialogue revisiting the practices of our communities, we gained a sense of agency within the field of science education. However, we realised that we need to move towards a critical view within our communities, and more contextual and transformative science education by translating these sites of hope to our educational praxis today. For us, this relates both to developing a collective view of how to make science education provide pedagogical conditions and experiences for critical and engaged citizenship and thinking how we can act and engage with different settings in solidarity. One way of moving towards this is by developing a political knowledge of our disciplines through a collective scientific conscientisation. Our communities are the departure points to achieve this.

Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile by Piergiorgio Di Giminiani

Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile by Piergiorgio Di Giminiani

Assemblage Theory and Its Potentialities for Dis/ability Research in the Global South

In this article, we present some potentialities of researching dis/ability in the global South from a new materialist and posthuman approach. We recognize that Southern disabled bodies are constituted in much more complex ways than those represented by globalized models of disability. Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory can be a powerful tool to both demodel dis/ability and map the geopolitical and biosocial forces that produce it. With this theory, we map the production of dis/ability in neoliberal Chile, connecting the 2019 Chilean protests, the sex education policies for children and youth with disabilities, and the neocolonial intensities of neoliberal-ableism. Through this analysis, we show how discursive-material practices of ablement and disablement are legitimized as civilizing technologies by global discourses of inclusion and economic productivity. The return to ontological questions is presented as an opportunity for Disability Studies in the global South to move towards decolonization.

Piergiorgio di Giminiani, Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2018), pp. xiv + 246, $55.00, hb.

Piergiorgio di Giminiani, Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2018), pp. xiv + 246, $55.00, hb. - Volume 52 Issue 2

Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile

Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile

Crisis and transformation of occupational identities in three sectors (retail, mining, state): contributions to understanding workplace subjectivities in neoliberal Chile

In the context of the restructuring of production and the emergence of more flexible work patterns, this article contributes to our understanding of changing workplace subjectivities under neoliberalism in contemporary Chile. Using research carried out by the authors, it describes the break-up of traditional ‘occupational identities’ that historically played a key role in shaping labour subjectivities in three key sectors of the Chilean economy—mining, retail and public service. These occupational identities, which combine forms of know-how, moral values, and a sense of belonging, still have an important symbolic weight in work experiences although they are under severe pressure from flexible reorganisation processes. The emergence of new, more individualised workplace subjectivities based on generic skills and geared to strategic mobility, is also described. The coexistence of both workplace subject profiles accounts for the complexities and heterogeneity of the processes of cultural and subjective change in the current world of work.

Embodied Architectural Geographies of Consumption and the Mall Paseo Chiloé Controversy in Southern Chile

In recent years, the geographies of architecture have expanded to include the affective and emotive dimensions of everyday life and the politics of urban space. This article explores these embodied geographies of architecture in an emerging urban landscape that has the built environment at its core: the postdictatorship retail landscape of neoliberal Chile. By drawing on findings from ethnographic research around the role of affect and emotion in the controversial development of a particular shopping mall in southern Chile, we get a better sense of how retail capital expands into new territories and how it responds to and enrolls embodied geographies in the process. Although this process does include the expansion of a particular kind of spatial technology that works through affective architectural interventions, this article also illustrates how such an expansion relies on prevailing imaginative and emotional geographies in important ways. As such, this embodied architectural geography does not sideline human subjectivity but explores its complex relationship with the materiality of landscape and affective architectural space. Key Words: affect, emotion, imaginative geography, landscape, shopping mall.

Crime Prevention and the Coproduction of Security: Outcomes of Citizen Participation at the Neighborhood Level in Neoliberal Chile

A study of the implications of the coproduction-of-security policy implemented by Chile’s postdictatorship governments shows that the appeal for citizen participation in security provision has resulted in individual practices of home defense and protection rather than the development of the associative programs promoted by the state. This has come about in a context of extreme fear of crime and mistrust of the institutions in charge of security. The fact that the discourse of security coproduction is interwoven with the individuation and privatization that characterize Chilean society calls for a review of the agenda of citizen participation in security issues. Un estudio de las implicaciones de la política de coproducción de seguridad implementada por los gobiernos postdictadura de Chile muestra que el llamado a la participación ciudadana en provisión de seguridad ha resultado en prácticas individuales de defensa y protección del hogar más que en el desarrollo de programas asociativos promovidos por el estado. Esto ha ocurrido en un contexto de miedo extremo al crimen y desconfianza de las instituciones a cargo de la seguridad. El hecho de que el discurso de la coproducción de seguridad esté entrelazado con la individuación y la privatización que caracteriza a la sociedad chilena requiere una revisión de la agenda de participación ciudadana en temas de seguridad.